Charlie Weis (official thread)

[buckeyeboy]

I'll concede that he's created a lot of excitement in ND and has won more games than people thought he would, but a 10 year extension to a coach who has yet to beat a decent team seems a bit premature. Ten years is extremely long in terms of contract extensions.

[osubro]

Good for Weis. I hope he invests well, loses about 80 pounds, and has a serene, uneventful tenure in northwestern Indiana. This thread should be moved to Open Discussion.

[slickman]

Will Charlie be able to "out x and o" everybody every year? Or will his experience at doing it in the NFL be too big a factor. I've seen it mentioned before about how Joe Tiller had everybody fooled the first year or two and then everybody caught on to his innovations.

Plus in the NFL you get to keep your guys a little longer than four or five years and you get to work with them more than 20 hours per week.

I like the argument for recruiting best.

If I'm Weiss, I stay at ND as long as possible. Why go to the pros and have to draft and deal with salary cap or waste time building a winner through drafts and free agency.

Good ol' Butch should've stayed in Coral Gables and Dennis Erickson should've stayed in Corvalis.

[AirForceBuck]

He'll be gone in 4 years tops. No way he turns down more elusive pro head coaching jobs. Before going to ND he was interviewing for Pro teams but was turned down because noone believed in him at the time. More years that pass, more jobs will come available. Just like I think if the Saints move to LA, say goodbye to Pete Carroll.

[AirForceBuck]

Originally Posted by slickman

Will Charlie be able to "out x and o" everybody every year? Or will his experience at doing it in the NFL be too big a factor. I've seen it mentioned before about how Joe Tiller had everybody fooled the first year or two and then everybody caught on to his innovations.

Plus in the NFL you get to keep your guys a little longer than four or five years and you get to work with them more than 20 hours per week.

I like the argument for recruiting best.

If I'm Weiss, I stay at ND as long as possible. Why go to the pros and have to draft and deal with salary cap or waste time building a winner through drafts and free agency.

Good ol' Butch should've stayed in Coral Gables and Dennis Erickson should've stayed in Corvalis.

The slick move is to recruit your best team EVER, then the year they turn pro, Wies turns pro and drafts a bunch of them to stack his team with players he alreayd knows. lol

[sandgk]

Originally Posted by BuckeyePride85

He'll be gone in 4 years tops. No way he turns down more elusive pro head coaching jobs. Before going to ND he was interviewing for Pro teams but was turned down because noone believed in him at the time. More years that pass, more jobs will come available. Just like I think if the Saints move to LA, say goodbye to Pete Carroll.

Disagree with you on that scenario.

From Weis' lips

Weis said one of his "primary goals'' was to remain in South Bend until he retires and at least until his son, Charlie Jr., 12, graduates from Notre Dame.

So Weis has tenure for at least ten years, either until Charlie Jr. graduates from ND (the 10 year metric) or until he retires, which health issues aside, could be an even higher number

[crazybuckfan40]

Originally Posted by Oh8ch

Bingo. What I don't see, and perhaps I read through it, is the new buy out amount.

IMO the biggest difference between Ty and Weiss is that Weiss is already proving his ability to recruit. Ty was never able to manage that process.

In all fairness to Willingham in the recruiting department these are his recruits that Weiss is winning with. He outrecruited us for Walker out of Georgia who is their stud rb.

[BuckeyeTrail]

god, everybody is just jealous. i hate to say it, but weiss is a FANTASTIC coach. nd's offense used to suck. he comes in, and all of a sudden they are playing with an incredible amount of crispness and efficiency. watching them is like watching a finely-tuned machine. it is not a "gimmicky" offense that other teams will soon catch on to. it is professional and extremely consistent. once he's able to recruit halfway decent players on defense (and he will...ND is going to be hauling in some ridiculous classes now....if i was a high-school player, and i couldn't go to OSU, ND would probably top my list), the irish are going to dominate. sucks, but it appears to be headed that way.

[slickman]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeTrail

god, everybody is just jealous. i hate to say it, but weiss is a FANTASTIC coach. nd's offense used to suck. he comes in, and all of a sudden they are playing with an incredible amount of crispness and efficiency. watching them is like watching a finely-tuned machine. it is not a "gimmicky" offense that other teams will soon catch on to. it is professional and extremely consistent. once he's able to recruit halfway decent players on defense (and he will...ND is going to be hauling in some ridiculous classes now....if i was a high-school player, and i couldn't go to OSU, ND would probably top my list), the irish are going to dominate. sucks, but it appears to be headed that way.

just a little jealous. they look like the patriots on offense. all the pats need is a great 6th round QB, a sturdy RB and throw in some quick wideouts. the domers should be all that.

[crazybuckfan40]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeTrail

god, everybody is just jealous. i hate to say it, but weiss is a FANTASTIC coach. nd's offense used to suck. he comes in, and all of a sudden they are playing with an incredible amount of crispness and efficiency. watching them is like watching a finely-tuned machine. it is not a "gimmicky" offense that other teams will soon catch on to. it is professional and extremely consistent. once he's able to recruit halfway decent players on defense (and he will...ND is going to be hauling in some ridiculous classes now....if i was a high-school player, and i couldn't go to OSU, ND would probably top my list), the irish are going to dominate. sucks, but it appears to be headed that way.

I don't see how you can say that they are not halfway decent players.

Quinn will probably be a first round draft pick, Walker is a good running back and their recievers are very good.

[buckeyeboy]

Author of current article on ESPN says that Weis's new contract "strikes [the author] as racist."

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...hitlock/051101

[smith403]

Hope we play the "domers" in the bowl game! It will defintely help with recruiting (OURS)! Just liked it helped when we whipped 'em in the 90's!

[Bucklion]

Originally Posted by buckeyeboy

Author of current article on ESPN says that Weis's new contract "strikes [the author] as racist."

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...hitlock/051101

I'm not surprised by the reaction...I think a lot of the problem is that the wins Weiss had looked a lot better at the time than they do now. I do think giving him a 10 year contract after 7-8 games is ridiculous...after all, if they wanted him for that long and to pay him that much, why didn't they just do it at the outset, becausehe hasn't shown enough to warrant it now...unless renewed fan and national (read: media) interest is what they're going on, and we all know how fleeting that can be.

[jwinslow]

Originally Posted by crazybuckfan40

I don't see how you can say that they are not halfway decent players.

Quinn will probably be a first round draft pick, Walker is a good running back and their recievers are very good.

they aren't that great across the board. and Quinn has taken huge strides, and is probably being utilized much better.

At first glance, it seems unfair. But you have to consider a number of things:
1) Weis took a wayward team and did enough to beat USC. A lucky fumble and a non-call on the bush-push helped change the outcome. This is the same team that throttled Willingham.
2) Willingham was not desired by NFL teams after his 8-0 start. Weis was highly desired even with two losses at the halfway point.
3) Weis is an offensive guru. I would like to see what happens against a good defense, but he has proven he knows exactly how to attack weaknesses in a defense.

Ty got screwed. No two ways about it.

In some ways, I think people looked to Ty as a savior, and then were let down when they saw more mediocrity. Weis came into a system that had endured two straight coaching failures (perception is all that matters, yes I realize Ty didn't have a chance). So Weis going 6-2, and nearly knocking off the "unbeatable" trojans, makes him extremely popular in SB.

[sandgk]

Jason Whitlock omits one key point in his opinion piece.
Brady Quinn and the Irish offense sucked dick during Willingham's last two years.
81st in Total Offense in 2004, 90th in 2003. Even in the heralded year of Ty's coming 108th in total offense. This and Ty's inability to routinely recruit elite blue-chip players had the administration at ND on the war-path.

Lets look at their D in the same period.
2002 - 13th in D, 33rd in 2003, 54th in total Defense in 2004.
This year they have not shown improvement on Defense, standing at 96th overall - but Weis cannot be expected to overcome all issues overnight.

In clear contrast Willingham's stewardship was taking ND down into a black hole, a routinely poor record on offense, year after year, their Defense shakier and shakier with each passing season. If this were, say, Cooper's record noone would be batting an eyelash over his firing.

The only racist component here is in Whitlock's mind. Those last two years were simply horrendous after he got the best out of Davie's recruits. Moreover, the truth told behind the win-loss records by their statistical ranking shows a deepening divide between expectation and achievement.

ND was right to fire Willingham, right to fire him when they did, right to fire him in the manner they chose. If they were wrong in granting Weis a 10-year contract this early, time will tell. Then, having already set the precedent that their contracts are no longer iron clad, they can buy him out.